it is strange
to look into the
mirror of our
upbringing,
and
start a staring
contest.

we looked at us
for a few hours
and
these turned into
days
faster than we
realized.

months passed,
then years,
and still we stared on,
into this mirror of
ourselves,
of our lives
and
our own devising,

our own separate
togetherness,
like wheat and chaff,
like milk
and
cream.

it has been akin
to a quickening,
a molting
a rapturous unbecoming
and
all the while,
a rebirth.

the decades will
continue
racing by,
and
elope with what is left
of our eyes.

we will be left
stumbling in the dark,
yet seeing
everything.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

It’s the Tuesday night
of your life.

Soon enough,
Wednesday will be
looking at you,
waiting for you
to cross it’s name
from this week.

Thursday will be
here before you
realize.

Stooped,
shallow of breath,
thin of bone,
milky-eyed.

“I’m so tired”,
said Thursday.

Friday is a second wind,
a telephone call
that announces
ourselves
to
ourselves,
reminding us that it’s all
over so quickly.

Saturday,
a celebration,
merrymaking
as we remember
who
we
are.

Sunday.

Resting.

Maybe a book,
a short nap,
an afternoon
at the cinema,
a steak
dinner.

Monday comes back around.

What if our hours
were days?
What if our days
were decades?

This week is almost over,
isn’t it?

My knees
hurt.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

In this bluest blue
of the first morning venture
I can hear a helicopter
or a C-130 from the airbase nearby.
Yet, despite my squinting, I cannot see it.

I avert my gaze from the sky,
moving it to my front lawn
just in time to invade the dog’s privacy
as she performs her morning necessaries.

The skyward sounds intensify,
I attempt to find their source once more.
Still unable to locate said airship,
allowing my eyes to follow instructions given by my ears,
I spy a hawk riding the thermals,
perhaps looking for a rabbit to invite over for breakfast.

Able to still hear the warbird or rescue chopper,
my imagination stirs these sounds,
the vision of that sleek, hunting raptor.

How tiny his goggles, his helmet.

How deftly the hawk fires rockets from under his wings
while strafing the rabbit village with his machine guns.
They scatter
as the burrows that nested them warmly, safely in the autumn are destroyed
in flying debris and fireball.

Breakfast is served,
our thunderhawk dives to inspect the results
of his latest scrambling mission.

The dog and I weep softly as Taps plays for fallen lapin infantry.

Our own breakfast is griddling,
we turn our backs to this  morning’s madness.

The omelettes are ready,
the bread,
baked,
pulled from the oven,
the coffee is hot.  

Like rabbits we retreat
to safer quarters.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2019

My mother is a password,
my father is a desk.

I am a pen that moves across
the blue lines of this page
or
the clatter of the keyboard
on which these words are typed,
transmitting their collective zeros
and ones into the blue-black light of
the text that appears unabashedly unmonitored
on the monitor, the screen, the scene
of this machine
that wages wars on my melancholy,
destroys the depressive states,
guerilla tactics,
computer-guided, cruise missile
ordinance.

Ordinary?
No.
A one-man Civil War.
An opinion-piece, op-ed
megaphone manifesto.

Rights?

Rites?

Writes?

I’ve got ‘em all,
down the the most
microscopic minutia,
a miasma of Most-Holy
**** or Shinola.

My mother is a password
my father is a desk.
I am a pen,
the mightiest of swords,
a war within a warrior,
no better
or
worse,
just different
from the
rest.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

We’re the heavy eleven.

Think about that number for a couple of seconds.
It’s a pair of ones, side by side.
When people talk about couples,
significant others, they often say something about
two people becoming one.

I’ve always liked the idea of two ones.
Two single and separate entities becoming a
recognizably different thing, yet still able to be
autonomous.

What an enormously human achievement.

And,
the achievement in no way has to be relegated
to romantic partners.

We can all be friends, right?
We can have each other’s backs, yeah?
Support one another?
Thick and thin, and all that kind of thing?
Home team?
Visiting team?
Does it really matter?

I’m one.
Me.
Alone,

You’re one.
Alone.
Independent.
Relevant.
Real.

Like the ones
in the number eleven.
One. one.
Two ones.
Side by Side.
Each holding the other up.
Supportive.
Encouraging.
Together.

The heaviest
of
elevens.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

My wife
and kids
like me better
these days.

The doctor
gave me an
Rx
for an
antidepressant.

I’m not much of a
tough guy,
my anxiety
presents
as anger
and
I tend to
take it all
very personally.

I cried a lot
this year;
missing so many
dead people.

Those little blue
pills make everything
a little more difficult.

But, there are less tears
and more future
in the windshield…
looking toward,
moving forward.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

the miracle
of a little
girl rising
from her
wheelchair
is
such
a rare
thing
that all
else
perhaps seems
ordinary,
maybe even
meaningless.

it is not.

miracles
are everywhere
and inside of
everyone.

Look!

You’ll see them.

in every sunrise
or
cotton cumulonimbus,
in every hummingbird
or the flour-covered
apron of that lady
who works at the
bakery.

there are miracles
in the eyes of
every child,
sparrow, leopard,
or
squirrel.

This line is miraculous,
as miraculous
as you.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019